Chapter Forty-two — Trinity
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
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TRINITY
“I’m really glad he looks like a highlighter,” I said.
Theo laughed next to me where we sat on towels, watching the surfers compete. “He does, a bit.”
The color Logan had been assigned for the day was an orange so bright he looked a bit like a traffic cone. The shirt also made him really easy to spot in the water, which was good.
He gave me a crash course in surf scoring this morning before we came. I wasn’t totally sure how it worked other than that there were groups, there was a raised platform with a couple of tables of judges who scored the groups.
The competition started pretty early, and the guys had a couple of pictures of me falling asleep on Bastian’s chest in between Logan’s competition groups.
This was the last group before the final, so if he did well here, he had a chance to win. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but watching him work the waves in comparison to the other surfers made it clear how good he was.
There was a cart rolling down the beach selling drinks. “I’m going to grab something from the cart if anyone wants anything.”
Aiden pulled out his wallet and handed me money. I stared at the bills in his hand and then at him. “I have money.”
“I don’t find that necessary at the moment.”
Brooks nudged my foot with his. “Spoiling you. Remember?”
I flushed and took the money. “Thank you.”
“Hurry back.”
My legs burned as I jogged in the sand to the cart, which was rolling away from us. I grabbed a water bottle and what looked like some kind of orange soda. It was too close to the color my Alpha wore for me to leave it there.
He was still in the water, not currently riding a wave.
“Hi.” I startled as a tall Alpha leaned into my space. “I think you’re more worth watching than the surfers.”
I frowned. “Why?”
A laugh. “Clearly I need to work on my pickup lines. Because I think you’re pretty.”
“Oh. Thanks. And no thank you.”
I started walking back toward my Alphas, and he fell into step beside me. “Come on. Me and my friends can show you a good time.”
“I said no, thank you.”
“And I don’t think it’s fair that you won’t even give me a shot.”
I stopped and turned to him. “Can you fuck off, please?”
All he did was grin and lick his lips. “Feisty. I like that.” He reached toward me, and I didn’t even have time to step away from him. A hand grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him from reaching me.
Aiden now stood behind me as he threw the Alpha’s hand away. I took a tiny step back and pressed my body into his. One hand on my hip soothed my anxiety. “If you want to keep that hand, I recommend you keep it away from my Omega.”
“I didn’t see your name on her, man, my bad.”
Rage tore through my chest. “So when I told you no three times it wasn’t enough, but as soon as a man tells you, you back off? Are you fucking serious?”
The man rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You seem like a bitch, anyway.”
I lunged and got nowhere. Aiden had me behind him in a second. The Alpha crumpled forward, and I realized Aiden had punched him in the stomach. Now he held the man by the back of the neck, speaking into his ear. If you didn’t know better, you might think they were having an intimate moment.
Instead, the Alpha went pale and lurched away from us as soon as Aiden released him. Almost running.
Aiden tucked me into his side and walked back with me to our towels, where everyone else was watching closely. “What did you say to him?”
“I told him the truth.”
“Which is?” I cracked the cap on the water bottle. There wasn’t anything like the first sip of cold water on a hot day.
“That if he didn’t stop harassing women and think carefully about his actions, I would find him and take apart his life piece by piece. Still might.”
“I’d really rather you not go to jail.”
Aiden snorted. “No one would ever know.”
“You’re that good?”
He looked back out at the ocean and smirked.
Logan came jogging over to us with his board. The round was over. “Did you make it?” I asked.
“Of course I did,” he said. “You doubt me?”
“Never.”
Bastian took his board as Logan gently tackled me onto the towel, which made me shriek. “You’re all wet.”
“That’s the point. I’m all wet, and I want to get you all wet.”
“Clever.” I rolled my eyes.
“You forget that I was there this morning when you got dressed. I know you have a bathing suit on under there.”
The way he was over me blocked the sun. “What, you’re going to drag me into the ocean?”
He thought about it. “It would be the easiest way to fuck you in public.”
“You’re in the middle of a competition.” I gently smacked his arm. “Don’t think about that.”
“I’m always thinking about it.”
“Okay, but sand.”
Logan ducked his head to speak in my ear. “You know what’s fun about having a dynamic like ours?”
“If you need me to tell you, I might question some things.”
He laughed against my ear, giving me chills even though the day was warm and so was he. “Careful, I’ll hand you over to Brooks to spank your bratty ass.”
“Promises, promises.”
“What I was actually going to say,” he nipped the skin beneath my ear, “is that it’s not always about dragging you off to fuck you.
It’s about the fact that we could.” He paused, letting the words sink in.
“It’s the knowledge that something’s happening between us that no one else can see.
We’re being kinky in public just by existing, and no one knows.
“So yeah, I’m going to think about how I could keep you covered with my body while I fucked you with my fingers.
” He had that right. Would I safe word? Exhibitionism wasn’t high on my list of kinks, but I’d loved what Aiden did at The Grotto.
“I’m not going to, because I’m not going to risk someone like that asshole I saw seeing any part of you. ”
“That’s why you came over?”
“Partly. And I wanted to kiss my Omega.”
Loud, vague words came from the loudspeaker system. I didn’t know how anyone understood what it was saying, but Logan did. “Okay. Gotta go win this so we can get to the rest of our plans.”
“The rest of our plans? This isn’t all of our plans?”
Logan scoffed. “It’s barely afternoon. We have lots of plans.” He kissed me one more time before taking his board and jogging back to the water.
I looked over at Brooks. “What kind of plans?”
“It’s a surprise, baby.”
“What’s even down here, other than this?”
Aiden moved and sat behind me, letting me lean back against his body. He had sunblock in his hand and slowly began to rub it down my arms. “I can do that.”
“You will not.”
We watched Logan surf while Aiden reapplied the sunscreen to the top half of my body. He tossed the tube to Bastian, and he worked on my legs. “A girl could get used to this.”
“Please do,” Aiden said. “It’s part of the exchange.”
Logan’s bright orange appeared on a huge wave. They’d been getting bigger for the last hour, and now they were big enough that I would say hell no. I pulled Aiden’s arms around my waist. “How so?”
“You give us a lot of power. You love it, and we love it. That doesn’t make it easy, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s enough.
You’re already handing yourself over to us.
Body, mind, hopefully heart. So anything I can take off your plate, I will.
” He kissed my bare shoulder. “But don’t think I’m totally selfless.
It feeds my kink too. You’re mine. I take care of what’s mine.
” He paused for a moment. “I know the dynamic is sexual, but I don’t mind if it’s more.
I love that. And I think you want more too.
We’ll find the happy place between your independence and submission. It will just take time.”
His hands found mine, stroking over the chains on my hands. There wasn’t anything to say. It was the truth. I think I did want more, and had no way to really ask for what I needed, because I didn’t know. We would figure it out together.
Logan conquered that wave and stayed on his board, and he made it look effortless. If I was on a surfboard, I would be pounded flat by the waves in zero-point-five seconds.
The other surfers were good. Great even. But you could see that Logan was a cut above. He moved with the water like he belonged in it. Almost like the water was his home, and he was a visitor on land. He was beautiful.
“Theo?”
He looked over.
“What’s your favorite race you’ve won? I want to watch it.”
“I’ll send it to you.”
Brooks laughed. “I’ll send you the best fan compilations.”
“Fan compilations?”
“Logan and Bastian have some too. Mostly shirtless shots of them to music.”
I nodded. “Yes. I will need that in my life at the earliest available opportunity.”
Bastian looked at his phone. “He has time to catch one more wave.”
Surfing competitions were a complex blend of free-for-all surfing and a hierarchy of those within the actual grouping. You caught waves and got scored on them, taking the best few, and there might have been a maximum amount of waves you could surf.
There.
I saw it.
Everyone saw it.
A gathering wave that was going to be incredible.
Logan spotted it and began to paddle. There was another surfer going for it too, but Logan made it there first and took the wave. “Yes!” I clapped my hands together, everything tensing as if I could somehow affect the outcome.
It was a barrel wave. He lived inside the opening, catching the wave so far down the beach that I saw his back by the time he finally pulled out of it.
The whistles blew, signaling the end of the heat. “He has to win after that, right?”
“We’ll see,” Bastian said, then winked. “Don’t jinx it.”
I mimed locking my lips with an invisible key.
Not even ten minutes later, we were in the crowd around the stage for the announcement of the winners. Someone grabbed me. I yelled before realizing that Bastian had me on his shoulders and was lifting me so I could see over the crowd.
Logan won. It wasn’t even close. He had a solid three points over the surfer in second place. He spotted me and pointed at me as he accepted his prize. After yesterday’s social media post, I was sure some of these people knew exactly who I was.
I didn’t care. I was just proud of my Alpha.
He jogged over, giving his board to Brooks so he could pull me off Bastian’s shoulders and kiss me in front of all these people.
“Congratulations,” I said between his kissing me.
“Thanks, wildfire. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
He laced our fingers together. “To get you wet.”